Tesla Model X Production Line Looks Like a Car Factory

If you want to see what Tesla has done with the NUMMI plant it purchased from General Motors, have a watch of the video above.

It shows both the Model X and Model S being built, with snippets from the aluminum sheets being stamped at the very beginning of the Model X process to Model S bodyshells headed skyward to the paint shop.

Jean Lemieux of The Car Guide captured the video, and said that the Model X - cranked out to the tune of 1,000 per week - uses 458 robots for its production line, three times more than are used on the Model S production line.

The first Model X electric SUVs were delivered to a few customers at a special event at the end of September, but widespread deliveries are only now starting up. The California automaker temporarily shut down its Model S plant in 2014 to install the robots and lines that it needed to be able to build both the S and the X there.

Fair warning on this video though, while battery electric vehicles behave rather differently from their ICE counterparts once they're on the road, you could trace the way they're assembled all the way back to the Ford Model T. So if you've seen one carmaker's factory, you've sort of seen them all.